Begend
by planet p
Summary: In the not too distant future... OC-centric, OC/OC. If you don't like this sort of thing, please do not read.


**Begend** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

_2007_

Ty replaced the receiver and spun around in his chair, wheeling the chair across the floor. He frowned momentarily before beginning to type on a keyboard, his eyes on the monitor screen. He lit a cigarette – _NO SMOKING_ sign aside – and cut out the sound of children playing and shoving and shrieking with heavy metal. He scratched at the side of his face and stowed a strand of dark hair behind his right ear. The cigarette helped with the sick feeling in his stomach, but the rash was back and it itched something hideous.

Ty stubbed his cigarette out on the wall and tramped out of the office. Grotty little children came up to him and prodded and picked and nagged and whined and got sad faces. Ty imitated their glum expressions and messed up their hair and told them kitschy jokes and taught them about poker and blackjack. Nu, 35, Vietnamese, single mother, smiled and shook her head. Ty figured she liked him. He shot her the odd smile here and there, a cute little wink. Skirts didn't interest him. It was something to preoccupy his mind, a bit of fun, but that was where it ended.

Nu had four girls: Hoa, 22; Ping, 14; Tong, 13, and Am, 9. Nu had told Ty about her daughters when he had given her a cigarette. Hoa, a year younger than Ty, wore her hair carrot red and worked in a club. Her younger sisters, Ping and Tong, worked the late shift as cleaners in a plaza at the other end of town. Am was going to go to college, Nu said. Am was going to be a doctor or a lawyer. Ty shrugged and wished her luck. "What the fuck."

Ty made a glum clown. He hated the stupid face paint, curly red wig, and spotted costume. He chucked the curls and preferred his walking boots. He swapped red face paint with green because he thought it might upset the grotty midgets. He smelt of cigarette smoke and chocolate shampoo.

They ate trashy dimsims and junky strawberry creams for lunch, out in the car park beneath all of that blue blue sky, a colour Ty hated because it was the colour of his own eyes. He wore a plain silver band on his left thumb and painted his nails bottle green to keep from biting them. Nu invited him around to her place and he agreed.

They listened to Olivia Newton-John's _Make A Move On Me_, holed up in the tiny lounge room, a shabby couch and fizzing television set. The refrigerator clunked from the other room. Nu told Ty about the award Am had gotten, Student of the Week. Ty couldn't be stuffed listening. He pulled the small woman into his lap and drowned out her words with a kiss. He couldn't see there as being any other reason she had asked him around.

Am arrived in the door at six o'clock. She had been in the kitchen but there was no dinner. Ty ordered takeout. The kid couldn't very well go without dinner. Am withdrew to her bedroom after dinner. The refrigerator pissed Ty off. Nu watched the frayed tablecloth, her face cast downward. "Am goes to complete work teacher gives," Nu told the tablecloth in a small voice.

Ty nodded glumly and dropped his chin to the table. He tried and tried but it was no clearer to him than it had been several seconds earlier what Nu seemed so interested in. He sighed heavily and looked up once again. "Will you marry me?" he asked blankly.

Nu's chin shot up and she gaped. Ty watched her for indication of her response. She gazed upon him in surprise and suspicion. Ty didn't flinch. "Yes," she replied, and only then did she smile. "I make tea."

Ty nodded and the woman stood and bustled about the small room. She filled the kettle and set it upon the stove. Once the kettle was on, she went down the hall to inform Am that she was making tea. She would tell her daughter the good news then, but Am could not tell her sisters, that was a mother's job.

Ty met Nu's three elder daughters that Sunday, the day of their wedding. Nu wore a cotton summer dress, lime green, and a pair of small canvas flats Hoa had lent her. The newlyweds danced to _Druscilla Penny_ and the four daughters laughed and took pictures on a disposable camera. Am wore the dark green nail polish Ty had given her as a congratulations for her award. Ty presented his new bride her wedding gift, a new refrigerator. Nu screamed and threw her arms around him.

Ty played the mime. Grotty little children blurted out their guesses at what he was miming. Nu laughed and strolled past. Ty ran and got in her way. Nu smiled and watched him patiently. He leant across, picked a plastic flower from behind her ear and presented her with the offering. Nu took the flower and thanked him before once again going on her way.

Tiny little Druscilla Ai with her wide cow eyes and screaming voice made the family seven.

* * *

The woman stood leant against a grimy pillar, shiny great mural, a photograph depicting some tropical island, bright in the background, brilliant blue sky at odds with her shaggy red hair. She stabbed an idle straw into the crushed ice of her watermelon blue slush puppy.

She wore a white tee patterned with trains and boats and planes; a pair of frayed, washer-eaten hems, khaki cargos, slack and faded from age, but well enough in all the right places.

A rusted mirror ran along the wall. Grubby tile walls shone bone white in the jarring sterile light. Cubicle doors scrawled in graffiti, hung limpidly from their hinges. The room shivered. A commuter train passed out on the platform.

She smacked into the grimy wall, snickering through her boyish grin, his breath hot on her face. He breathed into her hair, what he was going to do to her. She laughed and they couldn't undress each other fast enough any more than they could keep their hands to themselves.

Her breath came in short rasping intervals, cheeks flushed, her pupils too wide in the harsh light. She dropped her head onto his shoulder as the room dissolved in a pool around her.

* * *

Druscilla Ai lay in a cot under the window. Ty sat in darkness, settled upon the bed edge, a cigarette between his thumb and finger, hands clutching the mattress, ash falling onto the dirty carpet. He smiled and thought that if someone were to ask if he had ever been proud this would be the moment he would choose.

Ty watched his wife bent over the kitchen sink, hands busy scrubbing. He came up behind her and scooped the hair off her shoulder. Dipping, he planted a kiss on the side of her neck, pulling her to him. Nu giggled and turned her chin to lean her head on his shoulder. He ran a hand down the side of her body, causing her to tremble, and slipped a hand between her legs. "My beautiful beautiful wife," he announced in Vietnamese, speaking to the room at large.

-

Parker watched the struggling boy with appraise. A smile turned her lips and she grinned, whirling as a pair of Sweepers passed, dragging the boy between them. "Gotcha!" she taunted, just loud enough for him to hear.

The boy sat in the chair allocated to him, on one side a metal table. Parker stood behind a large sheet of glass, appearing inside the room to be a large mirror. The boy wore a long-sleeved tee of some soft cotton material, a pair of grubby cargo pants, his fingers dipped in dark green, a plain stainless steel stud through the left side of his nose, and a silver beaded bracelet on his left wrist spelling out his name as T-Y, several brightly-coloured spherical beads interspersed with the white square ones in mismatched colours, alike to those found in cheap children's do-it-yourself bead sets sold in bargain junk stores.

Ty lounged in his seat as though he thought the whole thing a joke. The examiner did not share the boy's humour.

**

* * *

**_2021_

Drusa scribbled in the margin of her test. 8E had Math. Math bored her to death. She chewed the end of her pencil and contemplated a boy two seats in front, his desk to the right of her own.

Vivian had finished his History assignment, she bet. History was worse than Math. It was so boring she could drop dead and always gave her a funny feeling in the stomach.

She grinned as the teacher announced the end of class and asked all students to remember to name their work. She quickly scrawled in her name at the top of the test and picked up her shoulder bag and slung it over her shoulder, dropping her test on the front desk on her way out of the classroom.

She stood leant against the corridor wall and waited for Vivian. She watched him walk three paces and ran to catch his arm. "Hey!"

Vivian spun to face her, mildly startled.

She tossed her chin upward. "I'm Drusa."

Vivian regarded her for a moment. She thrust out her arm and he took her hand. It was a cheap trick, Drusa knew, but it scored. "Vivian." He stared momentarily at her fingernails, painted bright blue, and then his gaze was on her face again.

She grinned what she hoped was a winning grin and shrugged past him, smacking his shoulder with her own as she went. She didn't turn back and he was left to stare after her.

She thought that she could almost tell what he was thinking by the dumb look on his face. _So that was odd._

She could have kicked herself, sneaking a peak back from where she stood in front of her locker. How was it that he always made innocent stupidity look so God damn hot?

She slammed the locker door shut and banged her head on the front. Shame on her sick mind!

-

She took a seat strategically in front of him in Science, so that she would always be in his sight, just corner of the eye stuff, the stuff that really got to you.

The teacher put on a disk. Drusa let out a loud sigh. Such fun!

She hated stupid education programs and those horrible happy generic voices.

-

Home time, she waited around out the front of the school and kicked at the dirt, stepping on her skull and bones laces.

Vivian sighed once he saw her.

Drusa remained purposefully oblivious to his presence, kicking at a dried clump of grass.

"Drusa," he called.

She turned, a slight frown, and shrugged.

"Did you want something?"

So he had caught on! Her History assignment was due Friday and she had barely started the dumb thing. It was Tuesday. "Wanna hang out?"

Vivian laughed, amused.

Drusa scoffed, imitating his laugh. "Jerk."

She wasted no emotion on him, her tone plain to the point. She shoved him away from her, snatched her grubby schoolbag out of the dirt, and stomped off down the road.

He really thought he was that much better than her!

"Drusa! Hey, Drusa!"

She kept on walking. She wasn't listening.

He ran ahead of her and turned back to face her, walking backward, and out of breath.

Drusa didn't look at him.

"Drusa, I'm sorry. I'd love to hang out."

His guilty enthusiasm made her want to smack him and be sick, in that order, but she only had one chance at this, and she couldn't fuck up now. "You're a jerk!" she shot back.

"I'm sorry."

She stopped and glared.

"I hadn't meant to upset you. I- I'd really like if we could hang out."

She snorted.

"I mean it."

-

She sucked a sweet she had taken from the green glass bowl on the lounge room coffee table.

Vivian said his parents were out, but no sweat, he had a spare key. They played computer games for a while, the sort with responsive Velcro arm and leg bands and gloves that interacted with the computer to command the character on the screen.

"That… is really cool…!" Drusa told him, smiling widely.

Vivian grinned. He used to think it was pretty lame, but now it didn't seem so lame anymore.

-

Drusa laughed, telling him everything she had heard about him, and even some of the things she had read on a door of the girl's toilets, completely fabricated of course.

Vivian sat and listened and watched Drusa laughing so much she looked about to fall off the bed.

She told him about how boring school was and how shitty she was at it and how funny that was because it was so lame.

Vivian didn't think she was shitty at school, but he wasn't that good either. Drusa laughed even more at that. She bet he got great grades, and certainly no Es. He blushed and had to admit no, that it was a very rare thing that he got an E.

She told him about her dumb History assignment and he offered to help.

-

Vivian sat on the bed, reading through some of the pages he had printed off the internet online library – he had said earlier that he had an account for that sort of thing – highlighting things here and there, jotting something down on a pad, marking an asterisk here.

Drusa lay on her stomach, gazing at the pages with big dumb eyes.

She watched Vivian for a moment. It was so silent.

Vivian looked up, having just turned a page, patient and studious, and caught her spying. "Anything?"

"Can you still see my head? I think it fell off and rolled under the bed."

Vivian watched her for a moment, straight-faced, and then he burst into a terrible fit of laughter.

Drusa was completely serious. She was sure her brains had rotted out of her head by now with all of that attention she had been applying and stretching. Her head hurt. She wanted to bang it on something to clear it up, but that would make it hurt even more.

She shoved him in the leg and he was laughing so much that he fell off the bed. Drusa gasped and dived off the mattress. "Are you hurt?"

Vivian lay there, a hand on his leg. "I dunno," he said, "I think I might have hurt my leg."

Drusa reached out a hand for his leg also. She winced and touched his leg where he was holding it.

Vivian screamed and fell about it laughter again.

Drusa, a hand on her chest, did not think it funny. "You're a horrible boy," she said, and he sat up. She crossed her arms and glared.

He stared back at her, and then he leant over and kissed her.

-

She wanted him to stop kissing her, but she didn't want him to stop kissing her, so she let him kiss her.

He stood up, and she stood up with him, because, of course, she didn't want him to stop kissing her.

The back of her legs came up against the side of the bed and her feet were knocked out from under her and she fell back with a scream, but it didn't last long because he was kissing her again and he was on top of her, and they were on top of all of that paper and that highlighter and that pen.

They were kissing and kissing and kissing that she pushed him off her and told him that her mouth was sore and that maybe he should try kissing something else.

He kissed her neck and he kissed her arms and he kissed her legs.

She laughed because it tickled and because her undies were so silly with little penguins on them.

He stopped and sat on the floor with his back against the side of the bed.

Drusa sat up and crawled across the bed. She kissed his hair and sat down beside him. "What's wrong?"

He didn't say anything so she just sat there, next to him, saying nothing.

-

She was home late, so she snuck in her bedroom window instead of go in the front door. That way she could say she that she had gotten home on time but that her mother just mustn't have seen her.

Her mother came to her room and stood leant in the doorway for a moment thinking that Drusa was asleep. She left the room and didn't wake her daughter.

-

Vivian took her to the library on Wednesday, recess, and they studied books and copied down notes and noted book titles, authorship, publication houses and year of print.

Wednesday night she stayed up late to work on her rough draft, and Thursday she went around to Vivian's and started typing on his computer and when she fell asleep he woke her up and told her to go home, he would finish typing it for her.

So on Friday, the assignment was done. She found it in her locker in the morning, and handed it into the teacher in class, and when she saw Vivian in the corridor she shoved him back so that he walked into a girl behind him and knocked her things out of her hands, tossed her chin and said thanks. The girl stalked off with a horrible glower in their direction and Vivian's confusion had turned to a grin.

* * *

_2022_

Camp was for three days. Drusa had never been to Camp before, but she had been saving up from last year and this year she had enough money to go.

She hoped she could sit next to Vivian on the bus and if anyone else was sitting next to him she would just have to chuck them out of their seat and see them try and steal it back.

She stood on the bitumen with her sports bag, sleeping blanket and pillow beside her feet, day bag slung over her shoulder, a gamut of other ninth grade students all sides of her.

Vivian made his way over to where she stood and offered her a health bar.

She accepted the bar and took a bite, having skipped breakfast in all the hurry and worry.

"Head's still there," Vivian told her, and she grinned.

-

Vivian offered her the window seat and he took the seat closest to the aisle. Drusa leant her head on his shoulder and listened to the teacher prattle on about safety and conduct and other such legally-required-to-mentions.

-

They stopped for morning tea and Drusa had to run off to the toilets because she had forgotten to go in the morning and now she really needed to go urgently.

Vivian laughed and watched her go.

-

They wandered around a market for some time and Vivian got her some apples, which she deposited in her shoulder bag, taking a bite out of one of the apples herself. "This is nice," she said, and passed the apple to Vivian for him to try, which he did, and handed it back.

-

He watched her looking at some postcards she might like to send her mother in the post and tell her how camp was going and that she was okay and that she missed her. She came back with five and begged him that she could have them all, please please please please please please please. He shook his head at her beseeching expression and laughed and said of course, he would get them for her.

-

They were back on the bus and had been instructed to read the papers the teacher had handed down the bus when they had gotten back on.

Drusa put on a posh voice. "I'm Suzie Sssscorching, and this is Today Today," she joked.

Vivian stuck a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing as Drusa went on, adding little things here and there to make it more interesting, because her brain was about to bust from boring.

She leant over and whispered it all in Vivian's ear, who was having so much trouble keeping from laughter that his eyes had started to water.

-

They ate the lunch they had packed and were taken on a tour of a museum. Vivian took notes, which Drusa kept scribbling little drawings on or making little comments, but here and there she would write something that looked to be potentially useful.

A teacher took pictures on a digital camera and Drusa joked that if they were lucky they would be the only two in the picture because everyone else would turn out to be vampires and- and, but Vivian had to stop her there and they got into an argument over vampire lore.

-

They spent afternoon tea in the gift shop, Drusa trying to swindle another postcard out of Vivian, unpacked at a boarding house and had tea at one of those chains with the all-you-can-eats where everything tastes just a little bit yuck.

Drusa fell asleep on the bus on the way to their first night-time activity, ten-pin bowling, and Vivian had to wake her up when they arrived and almost carry her out of the bus how sleepy she was.

She woke up a little inside under all of those artificial lights and Vivian gave her some coins for a canned drink and she just had to have some funny soda he had never heard of before in his life but she said was the best and tasted like cherry. He had a coke and was glad of it.

Drusa ran off to the toilets to stick on the temporary tattoo that came with her drink, but for the life of him Vivian could not see where she had stuck it. She said she would show him later and he laughed at the wink she gave him.

-

Drusa bet Vivian who could get their bowling shoes on faster, and when Vivian won, Drusa shoved him and he fell over with his chair. A teacher came over and told them to behave and started on a speech which neither of the two of them listened to because they were so busy trying to keep straight serious faces. They sucked at ten-pin bowling, but they didn't care because they sucked together.

-

Vivian sipped his second coke, sitting back in a plastic chair beside Drusa. They were watching the other students, hoping that a fight might break out, but when he looked around he noticed that Drusa was actually watching a cleaning woman in her early to mid fifties.

"Drusa," he whispered in her ear, and she nearly jumped out of her seat.

Drusa shoved him and went back to watching the bowling alleys, but Vivian could tell she wasn't really paying attention, so much so, that when he deliberately poured his drink on himself, she wasn't paying attention to that either.

He got up out of his seat and walked past her, all without her noticing. He headed for the toilets, but then stopped, and changed direction.

The cleaning woman looked around at him and smiled and covered her mouth with the back of her hand, handing Vivian a cloth.

"Thanks," Vivian said, a little embarrassed at just how dumb he really was. "My- my girlfriend and I," he explained, "we kind of- had a sort of- a sort of argument, I guess."

The woman nodded, still smiling, but having taken her hand away from her mouth.

"I'm Vivian," he said, and laughed, because most people responded by giving him a funny look or asking if it wasn't actually a female's name.

"Emily," she replied, and shook his hand.

He passed the cloth back and nodded. "Thanks for the, um, for that, Emily."

Emily smiled. "That's quite alright. You enjoy your evening now."

"Oh I'll try," he said fairly, because his imaginary girlfriend who had imaginarily thrown her soda on him was still upset at him and would be starting all sorts of imaginary rumours that would be the end of his social life for the rest of said life. "Her name's Emily," he said as he sat back down, Drusa now having noticed that he had been gone, and staring.

"What did you do to your shirt?" she asked, and he laughed.

She started to take the pullover he had given her back off, but he took her arm.

"I'm good."

"How did you manage that one then?"

"The soda can and I had a little disagreement over the Mars landing."

"What Mars Landing?"

"The one that hasn't happened yet."

Drusa shook her head and took a quick peek over her shoulder at the cleaner.

"Her name's Emily," Vivian said again.

Drusa looked around at him.

"Emily," he said.

She crossed her arms across Vivian's pullover that she was wearing and stared ahead.

Vivian watched her for a moment and sighed.

-

_The diary of Druscilla Reilly, who likes to be known as Drusa, on pain of awful rumours; the twenty-third day, being a Monday, of the fifth month, July, the year twenty twenty-two._

_Today, I, Drusa, attended Camp for the first time in the entirety of my drab life up 'til said point, being said attendance, the first of such things. Oh joy! at such normality, Drusa must mark the occasion down in script._

_Today, I, Drusa, stuffed myself, spent Vivian's money and abused Vivian most all of the day, a favourite pastime of mine._

_Vivian, being Vivian, insisted on reading the class notes anonymous teacher #1 handed out, taking note at a museum – a museum! – and failing miserably at bowling so that I, Drusa, would not feel ashamed alone._

_Additionally, I must add a note to avoid bowling in future as I am that bad, and that Vivian is full of utter stupidity and good deeds._

_Emily. I saw you today, and I must find out more about you. Who you are? Why you are both familiar and a complete stranger? What this all means?_

-

She shook him awake, a hand over his mouth. He stared up at her, standing over him, hunched, and struggled to sit, so that she may seat herself on the edge of the bed.

"You wanted to know," she said whisper-quiet, "where I put the tattoo."

And he saw that she had dropped her chin and was watching him out of the top of her head and lowered his gaze.

A small hand she had rested on a piece of bare leg, wearing only a nightie so far as he could tell, a soft cotton thing, little more than a long loose tee shirt, with an animated Harry Potter cartoon on the front in acrylic.

The hand slid smoothly up the leg, pushing the nightie upward, to reveal penguin briefs. She spread her legs apart, and on the inside of the right was the cherry tattoo, barely visible in the dim light.

"You can touch it if you want."

Vivian reached out a hand, a finger, and ran it over the surface of the tattoo, noting how the smooth skin on Drusa's leg shivered as he did. "Will you lie next to me?" he asked without any hesitation, because Drusa was his best friend.

Drusa lifted an edge of the blanket and snuggled in beside him. "Yes," she said into his ear, "I will."

They lay facing one another, so close that they could feel the heat of each other's bodies on their own skin, their breath on their faces.

Drusa had closed her eyes, but opened them some moments later to spy Vivian having done the same, only he was watching her and she caught him out.

She stared at him staring, and rose suddenly to straddle him. She planted her mouth on his, and lowered, he rolled her over onto her back and smiled into her mouth.

If she had read, and tired, of mouthing and pawing in romance novels, thinking it cheap and nasty, this was forgotten.

She wondered later how she should feel so safe, but that was how she felt, the room of stranger boys never less significant.

She lay alone in the early hours, warm and fuzzy inside the way she had always hated in romance novels, but found she didn't really mind in real life, and giggled softly at the memories, the way she had refrained from earlier for chance of waking another, and had seemed very cute at the time.

-

Tuesday they travelled in the bus again, stopping for morning tea, but piling back on the bus afterward. They were to visit a research facility, go out for lunch, and return to the research facility for the afternoon.

Drusa sat with her head on Vivian's shoulder and Vivian with an arm around her shoulder. She couldn't care less for the other students' talk. They were always talking, they would always talk.

-

The facility was guarded by high wire fences, razor wire at the top, and men patrolled the perimeter and the buildings. Drusa thought it all just a bit military.

The facility found her ill at ease.

Vivian hugged her tighter. She didn't need words with him, he seemed to know.

Here, in Vivian's arms, in this place, she felt far from safe. But there was something else too.

-

The nametag said his name was Reagan. He had to be in his early twenties, with blue eyes and red hair. But it was his eyes that she kept staring at, even when she tried to look away. They seemed almost unnaturally large, and so blue.

He was the tour guide, but she supposed he had another job, a real job.

He did not take any special attention of her any more than he did of the others, but when his eyes fell on her, moving across the crowd of students, she saw that he knew her, she saw that much in his eyes, that he knew her yet she did not know him, knew no more than his name by his nametag.

Reagan, she thought, and remembered the way he had introduced himself, the way he spoke, and stored that away inside her head.

Vivian walked with her, an arm sometimes around her back, and she wanted to tell him jokingly that she was not his leaning post, but she didn't say anything.

Reagan, she thought.

As a girl, a younger girl, she had known a man, with eyes that big and that blue. He had come one day, she didn't know from where, and left some equally anonymous day, to where she couldn't say. He had been a stranger at first, but then when he had gone again, he simply wasn't. She didn't miss him, and it seemed she had forgotten about him so easily.

She remembered that her mother would take her to the Laundromat late at night when it was dark outside and the artificial lights overhead hummed forever.

He told her about how the machines worked, and sometimes he told her stories in another language. She had asked of this language, and he had said, a long time ago, there was a time when everyone here might have spoken it. There was a vote, he said, and now they spoke English. But he taught her the language.

Thinking about this, she realised how long it had been since she had last spoken German, and wondered if it would still sound right if she did, but she seemed suddenly so embarrassed, that she thought that she might wait until there was somewhere to hide away so that she might speak it aloud.

-

They ate lunch at a food court in a shopping complex. Vivian and she had a coffee at a posh café. Drusa didn't feel hungry, and she couldn't convince Vivian to eat something because he really did.

-

In the afternoon they were shown around some labs and demonstrated some new fandangle equipment.

-

Drusa stuffed the pamphlets they had been given if they ever thought about applying for a job with the corporation they had just visited away into her diary and was glad when she could no longer see them. It was somehow as though she could breathe easier.

-

She wasn't hungry at tea, but she forced herself to eat something for the sake of Vivian, in case he died of starvation in the night from missing two meals.

-

The group voted and they were delegated to watching a horror movie. Drusa fell asleep mid way through. Vivian didn't wake her.

-

She twisted the ring she wore on her thumb, the one her mother had given her for her fifteenth birthday, and tried to get some sleep, back at the boarding house, but she wanted Vivian to hold her to make her feel safe again.

-

Wednesday, they packed up and spent some time at a factory, in between which they had morning tea and were on the road again before lunch, stopped for lunch at a roadhouse, and were back at school before home time.

-

Drusa sat on the bitumen with her things, Vivian beside her, and watched as the various other students left on buses and were picked up by their parents.

Vivian said her could drop her off home when his folks came to pick him up, give her a lift, it was no big deal, but as it turned out, a shabby car pulled up and it was Hoa to take her home.

Of course, she had never gotten round to explaining the sister thing to Vivian, so she kissed him on the cheek and whispered a hurried, "Tell you later."

-

Hoa took her by McDonald's on the way home. Drusa knew she wanted to know all about the boy before she even asked, "So, who's he then? He's quite cute."

"Vivian," she said through her sister's snort, "is my good friend."

Which had Hoa in stitches. She had never in her life heard anyone refer to anyone else as a good friend, and neither was she inclined to believe such.

Drusa frowned at her elder sister's immaturity, but Hoa said nothing, and sipped her banana shake instead.

-

She hugged her mother and showed her the postcards she had bought, or rather, Vivian had bought for her, and spent some time sitting at the table telling her mother and Hoa how wonderful it had all been.

Hoa didn't stay for tea, she was a very busy woman.

-

She ran to school Thursday, so that she would be early, and waited for Vivian out the front of the school.

She managed to convince him to wag school with her to visit her sister, Am, who was newly working as a doctor the other end of town.

They took a bus, and stopped for breakfast at Maccas. Drusa explained about her four sisters.

They asked at reception after a Dr Thanh and were directed to a waiting area when Drusa mentioned that she was the sister of a good friend. Dr Thanh was working right now, but she was schedule for break very soon.

Am, once she had gotten over reprimanding her sister for wagging school – and convincing a fellow classmate to do the same also – told that she didn't have long to talk, break would be over very soon and she wanted a decent coffee before that happened.

The sat in the cafeteria, Am with a coffee she seemed upset at because it was so hot, and Drusa and Vivian with nothing.

-

"I want to know about my father," Drusa said.

Am, seeming surprised at first, rearranged her expression into one of disapproval and sternness. "He left before you were even a year old. I don't see there as being much to talk about. He was no good and I sincerely hope that he's dead right now for the shame that he caused this family."

Drusa just sat there and stared.

Am had gotten out of her seat. "I'm surprised mom kept that junky thing," she said, nodding to Drusa's hand. "It was his, you know. I know what I would have done with it – straight in the trash."

And then she left, her walk as prim as Drusa had ever remembered it to be.

Vivian reached an arm around her shoulder. "Drusa," he asked, "are you alright?"

Drusa didn't feel alright, but she couldn't make herself move, or even speak, so she just sat there, sat there and stared.

-

They took the bus back to the other side of town and Vivian took her to his house. They lay together in Vivian's bed and Vivian just held her.

-

"I think there's something wrong with me," she said in a plain voice, "inside."

Vivian shook his head. He wanted to tell her that she was perfect the way she was, but he could tell she didn't want to listen to that. He kissed her head and hugged her close.

-

She dreamed of the desert, so hot, and the sky, so blue, and cloudless.

The girl had to be her own age, fourteen, fifteen. She kicked at the uneven concrete footpath as she walked, schoolbag on her back. Her hair shone red in the sun, her eyes a bright grey that might have been green.

She sat outside the supermarket, reading a comic. Her mother worked there with a friend, but they never stayed in one place too long. Her comics were her friends, and the romance novels her mother's friend wrote and she never let her mother know she read. But her mother never noticed, never noticed anything about her daughter because she was not her two baby boys who had been taken from her, who had been so sweet and so brilliant, because she was just a girl and she made her mother stressed and angry.

She sat and dreamed of the things in those romance novels, of a friend, of a life.

Then the people came and took her and did horrible things to her, and the man with the blue eyes was there, only he was younger, and he held her hand and she felt better. He was speaking. The words were there, but she couldn't understand. "I'll be your friend, but you've got to trust me."

-

_The diary of Druscilla Reilly, Friday 27, 07, 22, 4am._

_Emily. You knew him, didn't you? You knew Lyle. You were the girl._

_D._

-

Drusa sat in Math, the teacher's words just passing her by, the squeak of whiteboard marker on whiteboard a horrible pain in her head.

She was thinking about her father and why her mother had kept his junky ring, why she had given it to their daughter.

She was thinking how she could never talk to her mother about any of this, and how she hated so much about herself right now.

-

He used to call her little one, and she thought that this meant something, but it felt odd and she didn't understand.

-

They played field hockey in Sport. She pretended as though she could be bothered chasing after the puck, but really she couldn't. Gail had the puck, her face fixed with a detestable smug expression. But then something changed.

It was as though she had been transported to another place. She shivered in the renewed cold. She knew none of the girls, their uniforms suggesting a private boarding school. They were playing hockey.

She stood there confused, and then she collapsed to the ground.

-

She was in a hospital. She thought for a moment it was just another hallucination, but then Am was there, and she looked very worried but always professional.

Her mother came to see her during visiting hours. She stayed the night and was sent for tests in the morning. She was discharged by afternoon, and took the bus back across town, even though Am had given her money for a taxi.

Her mother had told her that the doctor had said that her heart had stopped clean and an ambulance had to be called to revive her and rush her to hospital.

She got off the bus early and walked to Vivian's, hoping he was in. He usually was, studying.

-

Vivian answered the door. They went up to his room and she told him about what her mother had told her.

Vivian sat and listened and didn't interrupt.

And then she told him about the other girl, the one whose heart had really stopped. "There's something wrong with me," she told him, and this time around he believed her.

* * *

It was the last time she had seen him. He had been walking towards the door and then he had turned, as though to say goodbye, and smiled. "I'm Lyle by the way." And that was all she knew about him.

-

She sat in History and hated History and the History teacher. They were all assigned seating arrangements due to a fight that had happened sometime earlier in the year between two boys and there was nothing she could do about that. She wished she could sit with Vivian, but as if that was ever going to happen in a million years, so she just sat and stared ahead and tried not to let the teacher's voice infect her brain.

The teacher paced back and forth at the front of the class, but as he had come back past the map on the front wall, she was no longer following him. She just kept staring at the map telling herself this was ridiculous, what was she staring at?

Forcing herself to look away and down at her exercise book, she scratched at her neck where the collar of her red cardigan rubbed on her skin, and wondered why the only pens she had in her pencil tin, when she had only newly bought new pens, were blue? Not even a single red pen?

She told herself not to worry, to sit there and process what the teacher was saying, and write it down.

-

She sat in the canteen with her tray and Vivian beside her with his tray. Drusa sat with he head on the table top and wished all of the chatter would just go away and leave her mental state in tact.

Vivian leafed through her History folder to check on her notes, if he needed to borrow her his so she could copy them out, and frowned at the space below today's date where rights there should have been notes but instead sat a set of verse.

-

_I am bounded by blue, face tipped to the heavens,_

_I dream I am standing alone,_

_At a great old gate,_

_But I am not sleeping,_

_And where is the gate,_

_But before me,_

_Unseen,_

_Life will always exist, a voice tells me,_

_The wind,_

_A friend, an enemy, a blessing, an omen,_

_They will travel far and wide,_

_These little whispers in the wind,_

_To find new tales,_

_To make new lives,_

_But here it begins, and here it ends._

_Look for me in the end,_

_Look for me here._

_I shall wait at the gate,_

_You on the other side,_

_And there shall be a way,_

_Because life will go on,_

_And there is no other way,_

_No other you and I,_

_No other us._

_At the gate._

-

"What does it mean?"

Drusa lifted her head up off the table with a groan. "What does what mean?" She gawped at the poem, there in her folder, there in her own handwriting.

Vivian blinked. "You- You didn't- D-did you?"

Drusa just kept staring at the poem.

-

They sat in the library. Vivian read the verse aloud, but it never quite made sense, but then, Drusa was not sure it was meant to make sense.

She had written these words, yes, but who had written them first?

She thought wildly that it might be a message, but that was crazy talk.

"It's just a stupid poem," she told Vivian, wrenching the folder from his hands. "I was bored."

Vivian opened his mouth to speak, but then retracted. He remained silent as Drusa copied out the remainder of his History notes.

-

She sat on her bed, reading and re-reading the poem. What could it possibly mean? And why had she written it when she had thought she was copying down notes?

-

She went out later, to the shops, to buy some red pens, and jelly babies. Standing at the register, she had no idea why she had gotten jelly babies, but she could not admit to herself how freaked she was, having so little control over her own self. The hum of artificial lights hurt her brain, and she just wanted to be home, safely in bed. A song played over the radio. She wished it wouldn't.

-

_The diary of Druscilla Reilly, Tuesday 31, 07, 22, 2am._

_Mom's gonna kill me if she knows I was out, but I had to buy some red pens. I still don't know what happened to me on Friday, but I know it has happened before, to another girl._

_I think there is something badly wrong._

_Why me? Why does it have to be me? How do I always manage to land myself smack bang in the middle of things that I want nothing to do with?_

_Who is the girl? And what is so important about her?_

_What's wrong with me?_

_Jelly babies._

_D._

-

"Wait up, kiddo!"

Drusa picked up her pace. She was on her way to school. "Leave me alone," she said, not daring to look around at the man who was following her.

She started to run. The man followed.

She had to run faster.

A bus was pulling up to a bus stop ahead.

She had to reach it before it left, left her alone with the man.

"Kid!"

Her heart was pounding so loud she could hear it. She thought she might collapse and die. "I don't know you," she screamed.

The bus was pulling away. She had to make it.

"WAIT!"

The man watched as the bus departed, Drusa on board. She couldn't look at him out the window. She had her face in her hands.

-

Vivian frowned when he saw Drusa step off the bus.

Drusa and he walked to school, but as he lived closer, he would arrive earlier. But here Drusa was, just as he had gotten in the gate.

She didn't seem right, and that was when he noticed that she was shaking. He ran to her and took her in his arms in a hug.

He wanted to ask what was wrong, but to do so so soon might alarm her, so he knew he would have to wait for her to tell him herself.

-

She had been allocated a partner for their Science practical and it wasn't Vivian. She remained glum for the entire time she was working on the experiment, and when their group work was done, she took her pencil tin, exercise book and text book, and went back to her own desk to finish up her report.

She was mid-way through her conclusion when a voice whispered in her ear, "Blue Cove." She stared in horror at the hand that had taken up a pen and scribbled the word in a margin of her exercise book.

She pushed her chair out, knocking it clean over, barged her way past the man stood beside her, and ran out of class, leaving the man standing right where he was.

-

She sat hunched over, sobbing, hidden in one of the cubicles of the girl's toilets.

-

When the third period was near through, she left the toilets and waited by Vivian's locker. Vivian rushed over when he saw her, dropping his things – and the things that belonged to her and she had left in the classroom when she had fled – on the floor, and took her shoulders. He wanted to look at her, to make sure she was alright, that she wasn't hurt, and then he hugged her.

"Please, Drusa, tell me what's wrong?" he said later, back in the library.

Drusa laughed suddenly, hysterical. "I'm going crazy, Vivian. I'm going crazy and there's nothing I can do to stop it!"

Vivian shook his head. He wouldn't have her talking like that. They would just have to talk this through.

"There was a man, a man in Science class, and he wrote something down in my book."

Vivian frowned. "I didn't see any man, Drusa," he told her, "I just saw you pelting out of class."

Drusa shook her head, laughing still. "There was a man and he wrote this thing down in my book."

Vivian watched her carefully. He didn't want to sound like one of those head doctors, but he had to ask. "Drusa, what did he write?"

"Blue Cove." She laughed, hysterical and sparingly. "He wrote 'Blue Cove'!" This last part she whispered conspiratorially, because he had whispered the word in her ear.

"What- What is Blue Cove?"

She couldn't stop laughing.

He stood leant against the wall, Drusa standing in the middle of the aisle, sandwiched in between two shelves.

He stepped away from the wall and kissed her, pressed up against rows and rows of books.

-

His hand was on her leg, another on her bottom. She moaned into his mouth and scrabbled her hands across his back.

Pulling away from her, he took a deep breath, and stared at her. She stared back, ready at that moment to do anything to have him. He seized her upper arm roughly, and pulled her after him, out of the library, down the corridor, into the toilets.

She backed him into a cubicle, fumbling fingers hurriedly locking the latch behind them, and fell on top of his lap, her hands reaching into his trousers.

-

She didn't care who heard anymore. She needed this. She did what she had to to get what she wanted.

-

They snuck out of the toilets later, and took the rest of the day off school to get a coffee down the street where they could use the internet.

Vivian searched Blue Cove and found that it was a place in Delaware.

That was when Drusa decided she needed to go there, and Vivian decided that he would go with her. He was not going to let her go off alone. They could take the train. He had the money.

-

She stopped by her house to pick up some things, and scribbled a message onto a sticky note and pasted it in the middle of the fridge. "I have to go away for a while. Don't miss me. Love, Drusa." Her mother would find the note when she got back from work.

Vivian helped her with her things, and they caught a bus to the train station.

-

Drusa slept a lot and Vivian watched over her.

* * *

Blue Cove was by the sea. It felt different to home.

The two stood in front of a Visitor Information board and stared dumbly at the map of the town. It was smaller than home, but it was big enough.

Drusa pointed out the little 'You Are Here'.

-

They walked into the centre of town and fell down on the footpath in front of a store, their feet tired.

Drusa sat with her head on Vivian's chest and closed her eyes.

-

They took a bus and stayed for the round circuit, hoping to glean some piece of information as to why they had been directed to Blue Cove.

-

That was of little use. They drank coffee in a café but they were lost.

-

They rented a motel room for the night.

-

_Wednesday 01, 08, 22, 11pm._

_I'm here. I've done what you wanted. What more do you want from me? Why did you bring me here? What purpose could it possibly serve? Am I really going crazy, or am I already crazy?_

_D._

-

She woke again at five and watched television, unable to get back to sleep.

-

Vivian woke around six and they stopped at reception and asked after the closest shopping complex and 24 hour supermarket. Vivian walked with Drusa and they bought some choc-chip hot cross buns that were cheap, a bag of jelly babies, a can of cherry soda, a bottle of water, and a few other edible items.

-

They wandered the streets for some time, window shopping, and then down some suburban roads.

It was midday before they realised they had been walking for so long.

Drusa laughed and Vivian laughed along.

-

Drusa chucked a jelly baby at Vivian and dashed away down a drive, Vivian following. "Drusa," he called, but she wasn't listening.

She stopped on the front veranda and knocked on the door three times in quick succession. She hardly noticed Vivian as he came up behind her, his breath heaving in his chest.

He leant across and pressed the buzzer.

-

Drusa stared at the sixty-something. She wished she could say something because she wagered she looked pretty silly standing here not saying anything, and although she couldn't say anything, she had started to blush.

"I'm not interested in charities," the woman said finally.

"Vivian," Vivian introduced himself, holding out a hand.

The woman did not take his hand, just watched him.

"This is Drusa," he said after a pause.

"Hiii…" was all Drusa could manage, feeling very dumb and very sorry for herself.

"We are- we really have no idea what we're doing here, but here we are- here- standing… in your front yard, talking to you about I have no idea what."

Drusa looked around at him. He stared back at her. The woman watched them. Drusa wanted to run. "I-"

"We're lost," Vivian put in.

Drusa stood there, and then she nodded.

The woman sighed, and then she stepped away from the door. "I should have a directory somewhere," she said, inviting them in.

-

They sat in the lounge, whilst the woman busied herself with finding a directory.

Drusa got up off the sofa. She couldn't sit still. She felt uneasy.

She paced around the room, looking at this and that, but not touching anything, and then she stopped and frowned. She turned to look at Vivian. He got up off the sofa just as the woman was returning.

"Excuse me," she said, suspicious.

Drusa took the picture off the mantel. "You know Lyle?" she said to the woman.

The woman, now given a solid reason for suspicion, moved across the room to replace the picture. "Yes," she said. "He was my brother."

"Was?" Drusa asked the obvious. "You mean he's-"

"Deceased, yes."

"W- Was that long ago then?" Drusa pressed on in an attempt to keep the shock and confusion from her face.

"Oh… a good, say, ten years ago now."

Drusa fell back on the sofa in her shock and landed in Vivian's lap. How could he be dead if she had met him only six years ago?

She quickly got up off Vivian's lap and re-seated herself beside him.

"Okay," was all she could say.

"I've got to go upstairs to look for that directory," the woman told them. "Do try not to make out the door with any valuables whilst I'm gone."

"No." Drusa could have kicked herself. What a thing to say!

-

"Who's Lyle?" Vivian asked once she was out of the range of hearing.

"Um, some dead guy apparently," Drusa answered just a little too flippantly.

Vivian stared at her.

"This is gonna sound kinda scary," she said, "but I think I see dead people."

"Dead people?"

"Yeah. Actually, I'm kinda scared right now."

Vivian pulled her into a hug. He didn't know what he should say, so he just hugged her, and it made him feel a bit better too.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," she moaned, and Vivian went with her to the kitchen sink.

"It's alright," Vivian told the woman when she returned from upstairs, "she just realised she sees dead people."

The woman stared.

"You can see me right?" he said after a moment, rubbing Drusa's back as she was being sick. "I'm not dead or anything?"

"I- I can see you," the woman told him.

He nodded hastily and turned back to comforting his best friend.

-

The woman made them coffees. "Parker," she said as she sat down with a mug of coffee herself.

Drusa stared at her coffee blankly. "I need a doctor," she said plainly, and laughed.

Vivian hugged her again. "Don't go like that again Drus."

Drusa pulled away from him and didn't say anything.

"Drusa," he whined.

"Jerk," she shot back.

"Okay I'm a jerk," he said, "but you going loopy isn't going to improve things!"

"Loopy!" she screamed, and he jumped. "You stupid, selfish, egotistical-"

"Jerk," he added, wincing.

She growled and forced herself to stare straight ahead. "I'm completely rational," she told him horribly.

"I'll call a doctor," Parker said, and Drusa could have killed Vivian with the look she gave him, but Parker was thinking more along the lines of a doctor for herself.

* * *

Parker hugged her old friend, showing him into the kitchen. She moved around the table to pour him a coffee. "This is Angelo," she said to the teenagers. "He's a friend."

"I'm not crazy," Drusa told Angelo, who had taken to watching her.

"I know," he said calmly.

"She may be an Empath," came Parker from the counter.

"That is quite possible," Angelo agreed. "If I was to ask you a couple of questions, Druscilla, would that be okay with you?"

Drusa stared at him. "Drusa," she said stiffly.

"Yes, of course. Drusa."

"I don't drink alcohol, I don't do drugs, I don't buy pornography. You?"

"Oh, occasionally," he replied, just as calm as ever.

Drusa was seriously considering mental illness. "These questions-"

"Nothing too difficult to begin with, my dear."

Drusa shrugged her approval.

"These persons you say you have seen-"

"The dead ones, you mean?" Drusa interrupted rudely.

"Quite precisely, my dear. And is there any degree of interaction between yourself and the deceased?"

"No, no, not at all," she replied, cool and casual. "They just lie there… rotting away… merrily…"

Vivian smirked.

Angelo frowned, a little cross. "Tell me about them."

"They're usually dead, and ahhh… kind of creepy."

"So you're not simply an observer to them?"

Drusa frowned. "Is this guy a head case?" she asked Parker, not bothering to turn to face her, simply staring back at Angelo.

"Thank you, my dear."

Drusa put on her best winning smile. "Not at all."

"Do you talk to them, as you would talk to Vivian or I?"

Drusa snorted. Well, if he knew so much-

"I am asking you, Druscilla," he replied, in answer to her unasked question.

"Ya think, Timothy!"

Angelo watched her for a moment, and then he smiled. Yes, he thought he could get to liking this girl.

-

_The Ferryman sits and waits by the shore,_

_So lonely for so long,_

_But then,_

_In one day there can be so many._

_The Ferryman thinks about all of these things,_

_Thinks back to a time when he was not the Ferryman,_

_Not yet,_

_Thinks about the Sun, and a girl,_

_A girl who he had loved, and even now,_

_He sits and thinks how lonely it is without her,_

_And they come still, these others who are not her,_

_Is it selfish, he wonders?_

_That he should want for her to be here, so that he may be less lonely,_

_And would it be wrong if he should come to her, and tell her such?_

_But he must work now, and he is the Ferryman._

-

"My mother wrote poetry," Parker explained, flipping through the pages of a navy bound notebook. "It was all very confusing to me as a girl." She smiled.

-

"Lyle was my twin. That was what they all maintained."

Drusa had the opinion Parker was still sceptical. "Yes, you were twins," she said, and it seemed to make sense.

Parker watched Drusa for a moment. "And you, an Empath." She sighed.

"I didn't know my father. He left when I was very little."

Parker nodded. "They will do that."

"Angelo? You and he are good friends?"

Parker smiled. "Yes."

"He wasn't always like this?"

"No."

-

Parker spent some time explaining to Drusa about the gene anomaly and how they were different, not a different species, not even a bad different, just different.

-

Drusa and Vivian were given the guestroom. Vivian had said he would sleep on the sofa, but Drusa had convinced him out of this ridiculous idea, saying that she would get lonely on her own, and what if that dead man came back again?

-

In the morning, Drusa asked about Parker's other friend, and Parker laughed. Jarod, she said, she didn't know where he was, but she showed Drusa a photograph, and that was when Drusa knew who Emily was.

"Who is that woman?" she asked, pointing to Emily, because there was another woman also, and she had red hair, only it was different.

"That's Emily, Jarod's sister."

"Emily," Vivian blurted. "Wasn't that that-?"

Drusa shot him a look that said he had wonderful discrepancy. "Oh," he said, and fell silent.

Parker frowned.

"Vivian watches too much _Big Brother_," Drusa said.

Vivian crossed his arms, grumpy.

"Yes, she was great friends with my brother. He threw her out of a window."

Drusa frowned. Just what kind of people did Parker associate with?

"Is she dead too?"

Vivian shot her a look. She wasn't dead because he had seen her.

"Oh I wouldn't know," Parker replied. "After all these years, who knows? We lost contact a long time ago."

Drusa nodded.

-

They had lunch down the street at a pizza place. "Nice people," Vivian remarked, breathing into Drusa's ear.

Drusa shot him a look. She didn't know what this Emily had to do with her, but it was important whatever it was. She felt it with certainty, like a pressure in her head, on her chest, a horrible tightness that was tightening still.

-

"My mother," Parker told her, "she wanted to stop children like us from being exploited."

"Exploited," Drusa asked over her coffee. It was 4am and she couldn't sleep. Parker had been up, so they had gone down to the kitchen to have a coffee and chat together.

"Yes," Parker admitted. "There have been people, corporations even, who have exploited us in the past, and even now. Blue Cove is no longer a base for such things. They have moved away. But they are out there, and they are no nicer, or no kinder, than they ever were." She paused for a moment. "My mother wanted to stop them, but she couldn't, so she came up with another plan. She wanted to rescue these children, and it cost her her life in the end."

Drusa frowned. She wanted to say something consoling, but was afraid it might come over as a bit cheap, as a cop out. "Your mother was a good person."

"Yes… she was."

-

"These corporations, you say they still operate?"

"They do."

"As private research facilities?"

"Quite often, yes."

"I might have come across one of such places." She continued before Parker had the chance to interject. "I met a young man, Reagan. Do you know him?"

Parker frowned. "Reagan?" She sighed. "Yes. My youngest brother."

"Reagan's your brother?"

"Well not actually," Parker admitted, "but officially." Parker leant back in her chair. "I've always maintained that Lyle was his father."

Drusa nodded. "Was Emily his mother?"

Parker looked confused. "I- What?"

"He has red hair," Drusa covered up.

"No," Parker told her, shaking her head. "A woman named Brigitte. Whether or not her real name, I'll never know. She died." Parker watched Drusa, somewhat troubled. "Why did you think that Emily was Reagan's mother?" she asked, after some time.

Drusa shook her head. "It was just a thought."

Parker frowned. "Drusa, if there's something you know that you're not telling me, you need to be honest." She took a breath and held it, as though it might hurt her head to let it all out at once. "You are an Empath. Children with the anomaly are always vulnerable. These corporations will never stop seeking them. You see now that you know, you can never be truly safe again, you can never forget, because they will never go away. Ages may pass, great civilisations may fall, but as anyone does, they will go on."

"A little pessimistic, don't you think?"

Parker remained completely serious. "Oh no."

-

"At any rate," Drusa sighed, "there is nothing for me to tell. I know _nothing_, and quite frustratingly so."

-

"Do you think he's happy?" she asked after Reagan. "Reagan?"

"Not happy, not exactly. They would take that away from you, almost immediately."

"But he's there of his own will?"

"I honestly couldn't say."

-

Drusa sighed heavily, her head hurting. It was all getting to be just a little too much. "I think I should try to get some sleep."

"Yes," Parker reverberated, "that might not be such a bad idea."

-

Drusa slipped into the room, quiet as a mouse, and lay down beside Vivian and watched him sleeping. It made her happy to see him so peaceful.

-

_Saturday 04, 08, 22, 7am._

_Parker, Lyle's twin sister. Angelo, a good friend of Parker's, and Empath. Emily, Jarod's (another good friend of Parker's) sister, younger presumably. Reagan, Lyle and Brigitte's son, both now deceased, speculation as to parentage as against official report._

_Corporations, exploit children, gene anomaly, multiple expressions._

_I am in possession of this anomaly, explanation, dearly departed._

_Emily, you still confuse me? So, aside from the anomaly, what has any of this to do with me?_

_I'm so tired._

_D._

-

Drusa slept in until ten, when Vivian woke her up. She mumbled something about it being the weekend. Weekends were good for only one thing, sleeping in.

Vivian laughed, and kissed her hair, but then she was grumpy that he had only kissed her on the head, and she kept thinking about where he should have kissed her on the mouth, and that stopped her from going back to sleep.

She grabbed his arm when he went to turn away, and pulled him back onto the bed.

-

Drusa sat at the kitchen table, eating cold left over takeaway KFC. "Oh shit!" she swore through a mouthful of mash potato and gravy, because she had just remembered that her mother would be worrying sick, and Vivian's parents probably wouldn't even notice if he was swallowed whole by a tyrannosaurus rex.

Drusa rang her home number on a payphone and left a message on her mother's answering machine. "Don't worry. I'll be home soon. If I join a travelling circus I'll send you postcards once a month. Love you. Drusa."

-

Drusa and Vivian traipsed back to Parker's, and Vivian explained that they had better be going. Unfortunately they had school on Monday, but Parker could reach them at Vivian's e-mail account.

Parker watched with apprehension, as they walked toward the ticket booth, having dropped them off at the train station.

She smiled because they were holding hands, and thought that tomorrow never seemed quite so hectic or dreadful when you were not alone.

* * *

Parker, no longer in the limelight of the Center, opened up a small clinic. Deborah Broots, who had long wanted to be a doctor and now was, came to work for this clinic. The clinic was named Catherine, after Parker's mother, Catherine Elaine Parker.

Several years later, Drusa and Vivian came to work for Catherine also.

It was to be a refuge, a safe place where children with the anomaly could be assisted to manage their abilities, rather than be exploited by them.


End file.
